18 August, 2014

Our Most Anticipated Games of 2014

By
Kyle Shimmin

Together, Matthew and I sat down and vigorously thrashed out
a list of our most hotly anticipated games that will be released this fall and
holiday season. Don’t worry, Evolve wouldn’t have made it anyway…

Most Anticipated Games of 2014

Matthew

Halo : The Master Chief Collection

Having never played Halo 1 or 2, I was ecstatic to hear the rumours
of the Halo Master Chief Collection a few months back. Halo is one of the all-time
classic games that have defined the modern day first person shooter, however
unlike Call of Duty and Battlefield, Halo's campaigns are deep, full of lore
and enjoyable to play through again and again with friends.

With a release date later this year Halo: The Master Chief Collection
looks to be THE game to make me turn my Xbox One on again and actually use it
to play games. 343 did an amazing job with Halo 4, taking the Halo universe in
a new and exciting direction from previous developer Bungie, who developed
Halo's 1 through 3. Aas well as Halo Reach and ODST, which I would have loved
to see in this collection of games at 60fps/1080p, but unfortunately are not.
Maybe we'll see it in the year between Halo 5 and 6?

Kyle

Call of Duty – Advanced Warfare

Over the last seven years, the Call of
Duty games have exploded in popularity and thus, heavily influenced game
design. Not only in the first person shooter space, Call of Duty also defined
the concept of persistent progression in multiplayer, industry wide. Advanced
Warfare is the first title to be released by Sledgehammer Games, headed up by
veterans of Visceral, EA’s development studio responsible for the Dead Space
series. Advanced Warfare is also the first truly ‘next generation’ experience
in the Call of Duty franchise, because last year’s Ghosts was certainly not,
despite being on the PS4/Xbox One.

Advanced Warfare is a new series, from a new
developer, on a new engine – this will be the first new engine since Call of
Duty 2, nine years ago. Unlike the previous year’s titles, this game is the
first to benefit from Activision’s three year development cycle initiative,
allowing the team more time to try new things.

Matthew

Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth

Sid Meier's: Civilization Beyond Earth looks to take the
Civilization series into a new direction. Unlike Civilization 5, the latest in
the series of games, Beyond Earth focuses on exploring alien worlds full of
strange new resources, plants and alien life, all of which looks to kill you before
you can kill it. Because this game is set in the future, all the technology is much more advanced than previous games, who needs warriors when
you can have Mech's with rockets and lasers!

The technology tree in Beyond Earth will be drastically different than
previous games'. The technology "web" will allow players to progress
through the game and achieve victory in a variety of different ways. Including; colonising the planet you are on, mining it for its' natural resources, or simply eliminating all other humans on the planet, leaving you free to do what you please.

Kyle

Dragon Age : Inquisition

The Dragon Age series has thus far, has
been both, short and tumultuous. Dragon Age : Origins was a fantasy epic which
brought challenging strategic combat together with Bioware’s signature
storytelling - you could choose to play as elves, dwarves or humans, each with
different origin stories which you actually played out. The decision and
choices, like the origin story, had wide and far reaching consequences, for you
and your party, as well as Ferelden as a whole. Dragon Age 2 on the other
hand, had you play as Hawke, a human survivor fleeing the Blight. In short,
Dragon age 2 was a narrower, less rich experience – decisions and the outcomes
felt more black and white, rather than the nebulous shades of grey found in Origins
– but the graphics and art were certainly more attractive, and despite the
repetitive environments, I did like Kirkwall. Inquisition sees the return of
several of Origins’ defining features; choice of race and tactical combat being
the most notable, with Bioware also pledging; increased customisation of
companions and an overhauled romance system with more “mature and tasteful”
experiences.

Dragon Age Inquisition seeks to fuse the
richness of a Bioware role-playing game, with much larger environments, for the
Inquisition to traverse and explore, built on EA’s Frostbite 3 engine – it
looks gorgeous. The announcement of the delay to November 18 was bitter sweet, but more time spent
working on the game can only be a good thing. The delay served only to heighten
my enthusiasm, Thedas has quite literally never looked so inviting.

Matthew

Pokemon: Alpha Sapphire Version

I love Pokémon, it is one of the earliest games I can remember playing
as a small child. The first generation of Pokémon
will always be great, the second even better in my opinion, but the third
generation being Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire
will always be my favourite. I think back to all 300+ hours I put into Pokémon Sapphire, exploring this new colourful, tropical island
full of strange new Pokémon, and I smile. This
generation of Pokémon was my childhood. I did
play the first two generations, but I was so young that I don't remember much
of it.

Pokémon
Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby look to be full 3D remakes of the old games,
complete with up to date features from the last games, Pokémon X and Y such as; full 3D movement along eight axis,
online battle and trading. As well as the biggest changes to the Pokémon franchise over the last few years; Fairy type Pokémon and Mega evolutions. Each of the 3 starter Pokémon now have mega evolutions, although Mega Blazakin was in
the last game.

I can not tell you how much I am looking forward to this game in
just two paragraphs so I'll leave it with this; Hoenn has finally been
confirmed after years of waiting, and it looks to be amazing.

KyleDestiny

Naturally, no list of games in 2014 would
be complete without Destiny being present (I joke only partially). Destiny
remains a game replete with potential, you can find my impressions, post First
Look Alpha and Beta in greater detail here. The game is beautiful,
breathtakingly so at times, and Destiny’s ‘shared world’ appears a fresh – if
not wholly original – approach to the online first-person shooter experience.
At this year’s Gamescom, we learned that Destiny’s first expansion, The Dark
Below, will have a December release date, assuming that Destiny as sufficient
content at launch, this is welcome news, even if it’s kind of weird to announce
it a month before the game ships.

I am particularly looking forward to
discovering how many times Bungie will have auto-tuned Peter Dinklage’s voice
by the time the final game ships. And will be waiting eagerly for the inevitable
A.I. rampancy and subsequently induced screen shaking hallucinations.